Disney.com has a new website design today.  If you want to see where the web is heading…check it out.  It is very multimedia and interactive.  In a nut, it’s an experience.  If you are soley into news websites you may not like it, but if you are looking for an experience — like the one you get when you go to a movie or watch TV — you’ll probably dig it.  If you are keeping an eye on innovation in online media…keep visiting Disney.com; it says a lot that a large organization has redesigned its high profile site twice in 18 months.  nytimes.com has a good article.

A couple days ago ABC O&O’s (owned and operated) launched a new website template/design. See one at http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/ They feature a larger video player that has some YouTube-like functionality. Although, I think some users may struggle with the functionality of the player.  The Spot Center is interesting; we’ll have to see what more they do with it.

This comes a few weeks after ABCNews.com launched a new design.

Here is a sneak peek at the new abcnews.com ABC goes into the user feedback and why they made some of the design/layout choices.

Here is a sneak peek of the new Hulu.com beta site. I’ll start by saying it is not YouTube. It does have some common elements with YouTube and other video sites, but it does have a dose of professional TV. Let me explain… it has a clean look like YouTube but the video player experience is a bit more like ABC’s video player, albeit unique. It has some cool video user features, including: Share (email to a friend, with the ability to edit a custom clip size), Embed (embed tag, with ability to edit a custom clip), Details (title, original air date, views, studio, genre, description), Feedback (for video tech support trouble shooting), Full Screen mode, Pop Out mode, and Lower Lights mode (area outside of video on page dims). The video quality is great. There is related video below the video area, and below that will be user reviews.

Here is my big picture take away: In the future, NBC et al will release pilots to this site and if there is any activity, they will start to move it toward broadcast. If marketers can test market online prior to the big campaign push, why can’t the professional studios? And we will love participating in the process and be more loyal once it goes on-air because we helped put it there. And because TV is better (hey, we helped decide what gets there) we will watch more (well, by that time your HD TV will just connect to Hulu via the internet and we will get the best of all worlds).

Popular episodes… thumbnails and category links…

Some of the fellas will like this one: Airwolf!! Who knew. Isn’t being your own re-run programmer great?! Note the 300×60 Chevy display ad (see video preroll ad frame below)

Hey look, DETAILS! That’s awesome… because it has been a while since I have loved watching Airwolf. Drivers…start your meta data engines.

Chevy video preroll – 30 seconds, with text countdown above the video…

Check it out when you have a chance and let them know what you think…

YouTube has a new look coming…

Here is a beta page on YouTube with the new design.

Here is the YouTube blog that covers the upcoming changes and gives you a chance to give feedback.

I heard the news, but thanks to DownloadSquad was able to get the link. -thx

News Corp.’s Fox Business channel and foxbusiness.com launched today.

…and here is a VC2 tutorial on the new site.

It was the top story when I checked out the site this morning. That’s so Current. Nice.

(follow up to my sneak peak post)

This just in… Here is a sneak peek of CurrentTV‘s new (invite only) Current.com website that Al Gore promoed during the Emmys last month. The site launches to the public on October 15th. Key points are: Explore, Connect, Contribute, Watch. They have a cool “Viewpoints” section that allows people to upload their opinions and for people to vote on it. You can watch the pods online. This site is pretty cool… it is more of a daily homepage than Current.tv… and that is what I was hoping for. Nice job Current… still a big fan! (thx for a peek… of our future)

Update:

Here is the first story I’ve seen, from Multichannel News

And, Hyatt’s words from a 9/18 SFGate story:

“What we’re moving toward (with next month’s launch) is giving them a reason to be on both screens at the same time,” Hyatt said. “What it’s designed to do is, if you’re at Current.com (a soon-to-be-launched Web site), you’re now going to have a reason to walk into a room that has a television and turn on Current TV. And if you’re watching Current TV, you’re going to have a reason to, at the same time, pull open your laptop and go to Current.com.

“We’re going to make those experiences mutually reinforcing, mutually re-enriching, in real time. We’re going to create fully, the first two-screen experience,” Hyatt said.

More screenshots…

“On TV” programming wheel…

“Make TV”…

“People”…

“My Current”

“Make Current”…

…hey look, this post on Current.com relates to my previous posts (NIN, Yahoo) about the record labels…

… and that my friends is what I would call modern media… 360 degree media… full circle media… conversation media… iceberg media (you “see” the top, but the content is really on the bottom)… the traditional equivalent of digg and YouTube and then some (personality, a brand and more dynamic). the rest of the industry will follow (this channel aimed at a hard-to-reach demo) in some manner.

Another blog post re: beta current.com, and another